


In the Halls of My Forebears

by Starrie_Wolf



Series: #LoveWins Challenge [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marvel Norse Lore, Multi, Temporary Character Death, Valhalla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4384100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Prompt: Thor takes Sam and Steve to Asgard!</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Halls of My Forebears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hanorganaas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanorganaas/gifts).



It was Sam who went first.

For all they joked that Sam’s empathy could be classified as a superpower on its own, he was still a hundred percent human, still paper-thin skin and bird-fragile bones.

Tony had seen the other flier go down, besieged on all sides, but, caught in the middle of his own melee, couldn’t get close enough to make a difference.

By the time any of the Avengers had managed to push through to his last seen location, it was already too late.

~*~*~*~*~

His very bones _ached_.

The key was tiny in his hand.

To the right. No, left a bit more. No, now it’s too low.

_Damn it, Rogers, can’t even get a door open now?_

The flimsy metal snapped.

Just like –

No. No. Don’t think about it.

“Here.” A slight pressure against his shoulder, the palm large and warm. Thor’s frame filled his vision, his body a line of searing heat against Steve’s. White sparks danced across the metal door knob.

The door swung open.

Thor’s palm skated down, coming to a rest on his lower back.

He found himself in the kitchen with no recollection of how he got there, being steered towards a chair at the table. It would have been like any other sleepless night, when the nightmares drove one of them to a restless prowl in the kitchen, and Steve was half-expecting to hear the sound of slippered feet behind him at any moment.

Sam always knew what to say to calm either of them down.

The familiar sounds stuttered, and then the kettle came down on the counter far too hard. Steve jumped, but he couldn’t see through the curtain of dirty blond shielding Thor’s face from view. He moved away from his seat, laying a hand on his other lover’s arm, and then he saw it.

Sam’s cup, sitting innocuously in the sink, where he’d left it before the call had come in.

It was like a punch in the gut; Steve might have doubled over – catching a glimpse of raw anguish on Thor’s face, like he’d been flayed open – like a never-ending asthma attack, struggling to draw air into his lungs –

His eyes snapped open. The linoleum floor was cold against his back, a complete contrast to the furnace slumped next to him. It took effort to remember how to unlock his joints, how to release the death-grip he had on Thor’s arm.

Steve stared at the five finger-shaped bruises branded into golden skin, and with herculean effort forced himself to his feet. Thor didn’t resist when he pulled his fellow warrior up, and Steve found himself loathe to give up the simple contact as they stumbled off to the bedroom, falling on top of the covers fully clothed.

In the morning, Thor was gone.

~*~*~*~*~

“He’s back on Asgard,” said Hill when Steve brought the matter up, after the second time Thor failed to show up to an Avenger mission. “He didn’t tell you?”

Steve shook his head numbly, and excused himself from her office.

~*~*~*~*~

_Maybe he decided to cut his losses. Maybe he’d finally realised how fleeting a human lifespan could be. It was for the better, really._

But this knowledge didn’t help Steve in the dark of the night, when the sight of metal shards sprayed across the crimson-stained asphalt was branded into the back of his eyelids, Sam’s broken body lying amidst the concrete rubble like a grotesque imitation of Icarus.

_Bucky’s scream, a single high note torn unbidden from his throat, moments before the frosty mountains swallowed him._

He would get no more sleep that night.

~*~*~*~*~

“Steven. Steven.”

Like so many nights before, he came to with a choked gasp. But this time, his outstretched hand smacked into warm flesh. Steve laughed bitterly, because this was finally proof that he’d gone mad, if he fancied that the ghosts haunting the empty bed could suddenly assume solid form, but no matter. Sleep-clumsy fingers yanked the warm silhouette above him down, his mouth crashing into the other’s without finesse.

“Thor,” he gasped into the willing heat, and that was when reality reasserted itself.

Steve jerked back so fast his head crashed into the pillow and bounced back up, and his bed partner barely caught him in time before their foreheads would have become uncomfortably acquainted with each other in a far too impactful manner.

Wait, that last sentence wasn’t in his head. “Thor?” Steve croaked, groping for the bedside light, shoving down the lingering doubts in the back of his mind; wanting, _needing_ to know if it was just another dream.

His Asgardian lover’s features came into sharp relief in the orange glow, lips pink and swollen, and it took longer than Steve would like to admit to tear his eyes off them, to remember why this should no longer be par the course between them.

And then Thor spoke.

“Do you trust me, Steven?”

There were a thousand things battling for dominance in his throat, like _where did you go_ and _it’s been a month_ and _don’t leave me here alone_ , but only one emerged victorious.

“I do.”

Thor gave a single nod, hoisted Steve to his feet, and called out in an authoritative voice, “Heimdall!”

Steve barely had time to blink up at his ceiling before he was swept up into a dizzying kaleidoscope of epileptic lights. He sucked in a breath, in shock or pain he didn’t know, and the arm around his waist tightened as though in silent promise.

After anything that could have been an eon to a few minutes later, Steve’s feet touched solid ground. Possibly. He eyed the translucent rainbow-hued crystal underneath him dubiously, and didn’t let go of Thor’s arm – just in case.

With a regal nod to the stately warrior standing guard before the passage, Thor strode out of the chamber, Steve in tow.

“Where are we going?” The words were out of his mouth before he was conscious of uttering them.

He wasn’t expecting the response.

“Valhalla.”

Steve’s breath caught, because he’d read up on the Norse myths as soon as he’d understood that one of the Avengers were a race previously thought to walk the Earth, and this was a term he was familiar with. Granted, the World Wide Web had usually used it in conjunction with dancing troops of naked women with giant white wings, but he supposed that was part of the human fantastical exaggeration.

Just in case, however. “The Asgardian afterlife?”

Thor’s sideways answering grin was bright and infectious. “Aye, the halls for the mighty einherjar slain in battle.”

“Then, you mean –”

The rest of his words lodged themselves in his throat, his eyes fastened as though magnetised to a slim figure running towards them.

“Steve!”

He opened his mouth –

– and Sam barrelled into the two of them, and words were no longer necessary.

~*~*~*~*~

Later, when they were tangled in a heap in Thor’s chambers – and apparently one of the perks to being the heir to the Nine Realms was a massive, _massive_ bed; why did they even bother trying to fit the three of them into a human king-sized bed he didn’t know –

“I thought you didn’t believe in religion.”

Sam laughed, his teeth a flash of white, and by God – the gods? He would ponder religion later – Steve had missed him. “That was before I saw Thor come down from the heavens like an avenging angel to carry me off to the afterlife like my personal knight in shining armour.”

Steve turned to regard their Asgardian lover, shaking his head in amazement. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Thor’s lazy, sated grin dimmed slightly. “Never before has a Midgardian set foot in the vaulted halls of Valhalla. I had to be certain.”

Steve breathed out, long and hard. “And you didn’t want to get my hopes up, did you.”

“Aye.”

How could Steve do anything but kiss him for that?

~*~*~*~*~

Later, much later –

“Wait, you said ‘slain in battle’ right? So I’d better do my best not to die of old age?”

Sam snorted and hit him in the shoulder. “For a nonagenarian like you? Every day probably counts as a battle.”

“Hey! I’m not even the oldest one here, why’re you picking on me!”

“You did hear the part where I said _avenging angel_ right? Thor gets a free pass. Possibly for the next ninety years.”

“ _Will you stop with the age thing already._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a Tumblr if you're interested!](starriewolf.tumblr.com)


End file.
